1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a shortcut management device which is capable of executing a shortcut using a function of an electronic apparatus, and managing at least part of the function used through the shortcut, according to the license, and a shortcut management method.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, embedded devices have also been provided with an environment which dynamically starts and stops an unspecified application to cause the same to operate therein. Under such a circumstance, an application has been developed which manages a shortcut for calling the function of the unspecified application with particular settings. Here, the application for managing shortcuts is referred to as a portal application.
In general, this application has a function of displaying a list of managed shortcuts on an operation screen. The application operates such that a user selects a desired shortcut and instructs the same to be executed, whereby another application is executed by a specific setting associated with the shortcut. Here, the application actually called in association with the shortcut is referred to as a registered application.
The shortcuts are required to be continuously managed. For example, there are cases where an application which is no longer required is deleted, and a newly required shortcut is created. To save the effort of managing these shortcuts, there has been proposed a portal application which is configured to automatically perform creation and deletion of shortcuts (see Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2002-259010).
Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2002-259010 discloses a configuration in which if conditions predetermined by a registered application for shortcut creation are satisfied, a shortcut associated therewith is automatically created, and if conditions predetermined by the same for shortcut deletion are satisfied, the shortcut is automatically deleted. As a specific example of the conditions for shortcut creation, the publication describes the number of times of starting of the registered application. Further, as a specific example of the conditions for shortcut deletion, the publication describes a time period during which the registered application is not started, and a ratio of the number of times of starting per a predetermined time period. If the configuration described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2002-259010 is employed, it becomes unnecessary for a user to perform creation and deletion of shortcuts, and hence it can expected to achieve advantageous effects of reduction of the management costs.
On the other hand, some registered applications provided in an embedded device require licenses for respective operations of the applications themselves, or part of the functions of the applications. The license of each application includes a type which permits the use of the application for a predetermined time period, or a type which permits the use of the same until it is executed a predetermined number of times. In such a license, if a condition is not satisfied any longer, the license is invalidated, which makes unavailable the application or part of the functions thereof associated with the license.
However, the above-mentioned shortcut management device suffers from the following problem: In the shortcut management device disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2002-259010, a first problem is that even if the license is invalidated, making unavailable the associated application or part of the functions of the application, the shortcut remains for a while. This causes a problem that the portal application is not user-friendly during the time.
A second problem is that since no consideration is given to a case of creation of a shortcut by integrating settings for processing by a registered application, it is difficult to automatically create the shortcut in which the settings are integrated. Therefore, it is required to reconfigure the settings for processing by the registered application associated with the shortcut after the application is started via the shortcut. This makes the portal application not user-friendly.
A third problem is that since no consideration is given to a case of creation of a shortcut by integrating settings for processing by a registered application, similarly to the second problem, even if part of the functions used by the registered application becomes unavailable, the proposed shortcut management device does not perform maintenance on the shortcut. Therefore, the user has to take the trouble to manually edit or delete the shortcut. Further, the proposed shortcut management device cannot cope with a case where the user desires to make use of the shortcut after eliminating part of the functions used by the registered application.